Because we all have the money to buy every CD we want. There's nothing more important or essential to us at any point in time, so we all have the money to indulge ourselves in the simple pleasures of great metal albums.

But part of the joy of collecting cds is getting a few at a time, enjoying them for a decent length of time, and repeating the process. You don't have to spend your whole life savings.

It's not always possible. If I never downloaded, I wouldn't know 3/4ths of the stuff I know now, and I certainly wouldn't appreciate music as much. I'm pretty hesitant to spend any money at all right now, as I'm going to college this fall and will need all I can get - without a job right now, mind you.

I'm just saying, don't patronize people for not buying CDs. Not everyone is one of those douchebags who goes, "hey, why buy stuff when you can get it for free?"

And yeah, I would imagine losing your music sucks. Luckily it has not happened to me.

But part of the joy of collecting cds is getting a few at a time, enjoying them for a decent length of time, and repeating the process. You don't have to spend your whole life savings.

That's why I still buy CDs. Plus there is a more physical and personal element to them. It's much more exciting to get something with album artwork and a physical copy of the CD than to click 'download' on iTunes... even if iTunes is cheaper.

That must suck so hard. It must be one of the greatest pains for a metalhead to lose their collection of music. Luckily, my collection is way beyond pathetic in size (I'm not allowed to download music, but I'd rather not get into it), so losing it wouldn't hurt me too much.

There is software on how to retrieve data even if it was deleted from recycle bin. The data will still be there if you don't write over that space of the HDD. Here are some keywords to google search: "recover deleted data windows" or whatever word you might think. Secondly, it's easy to back it up on DVDs. If not then share your music with your friends by copying entire hard drives. Or best, don't delete anything from your music folder and/or keep it on an external HDD as some suggested already. 1 TB hard drives are accesible, and you can just buy a cheap device than you can make the HDD into an external one.

There is software on how to retrieve data even if it was deleted from recycle bin. The data will still be there if you don't write over that space of the HDD. Here are some keywords to google search: "recover deleted data windows" or whatever word you might think. Secondly, it's easy to back it up on DVDs. If not then share your music with your friends by copying entire hard drives. Or best, don't delete anything from your music folder and/or keep it on an external HDD as some suggested already. 1 TB hard drives are accesible, and you can just buy a cheap device than you can make the HDD into an external one.

I think I might just buy a 500 gig external HDD, I'm looking at some at Futureshop and they are pretty affordable.

How much did it cost you to get one of these? If they don't cost too much I'd like to get one as a backup in case anything happens to any of my CDs.

You can find an external 500 GB hard drive on eBay for less than 150$ USD (the one I saw for 115$ was a WD drive, my favorite brand). Dunno if you need that much room but if you do, it's pretty affordable. I bought an internal 1 TB hard drive for less than 100$ last year.

[quote="TheRealJbMcfee"][/quote]
By the way check your Inbox. I think there is a problem with sending PMs because I've had it before. I sent you a message about helping you getting your music back, depending where you live.

I download pretty often myself, but I buy as much as I can afford and can find. It's always much better to have my physical copies since, along with enjoying the fact of owning a physical copy, I have access to extremely high-quality backups of most of my favorite material just in case something like that happens to me.

A condom is like the government because it allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed, and breaks when you most need it.

i'm sure you could also free up space by at least getting rid of these artists.

Empyreal wrote:

Misainzig wrote:

Or you could just buy the fucking cds.

Because we all have the money to buy every CD we want. There's nothing more important or essential to us at any point in time, so we all have the money to indulge ourselves in the simple pleasures of great metal albums.

true. exactly my argument. i will download whatever i want, because i am not going to deprive myself of music simply because i can't afford it. if i was starving, i would steal food too.

How much did it cost you to get one of these? If they don't cost too much I'd like to get one as a backup in case anything happens to any of my CDs.

You can find an external 500 GB hard drive on eBay for less than 150$ USD (the one I saw for 115$ was a WD drive, my favorite brand). Dunno if you need that much room but if you do, it's pretty affordable. I bought an internal 1 TB hard drive for less than 100$ last year.

Now you can easily get a 1 TB external Seagate for around $120. To all those who keep saying buy the CD, the options are not mutually exclusive. I buy CD's and I rip them to mp3 and FLAC (for listening on a SqueezeBox), and I backup to multiple drives. I sure as hell don't want to have to rip 1500 albums again.

Last edited by brightfield on Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

bands put alot of effort into producing albums , I don't download, it is part of the fun of collecting getting stuff a little at a time . if you steal music you steal from bands .This is why I always have cherished my vinyl you cant steal vinyl from the internet . dont get me wrong steal all the metallacrap and poser pantera and guns and roses garbage shit you want. (my opinion ) as they probably have enough bread already but you should try and make it a point to ALWAYS support underground bands as most are in it for the love they have of the scene . This is exactly whats wrong with people nowadays and why the scene overtime has gotten flooded with idiots talking about how much shit they have . its kind of like a big dick contest . sort of mentality like I have more bands and know more about the scene than you so I am cooler type of vibe . Not trying to offend anyone but support the true scene in the truest sense of the word and buy their stuff . or at least quit bitching about stupid shit and back up all your stuff on burned cd's then at least you put some effort into your collection instead of being a fucking mp3 whore .

_________________...Oh, hear the thunder
Hear the voices
Hear the noise from hell
Demons, devils, dark spirits
From church horror tales
The hordes of dead roar...

Never buy from iTunes. They give you 128 kbps bullshit. Low quality. It'd be better to buy the CD yourself, rip it to a lossless format and convert to a lossy v0/v2/ogg. As a rule, I don't get anything under 192 kbps CBR. I torrent simply because sometimes I can't find that CD, or because outrageously overpriced. I'm not going to spend $50 on an album!

oh and Hellhippie, ripping vinyls is now common place. I have Rush's 2112 as a FLAC vinyl rip and it runs at a whopping 2.7k kbps!

I never really got the "can't afford CDs" argument. Unless you're dirt poor, I don't see how hard it is to buy a CD every week or two. I'm pretty much in the poor house and can afford at least one CD a week easily. Look in the used bins, try eBay, shop around for the cheapest prices online.

But part of the joy of collecting cds is getting a few at a time, enjoying them for a decent length of time, and repeating the process. You don't have to spend your whole life savings.

It's not always possible. If I never downloaded, I wouldn't know 3/4ths of the stuff I know now, and I certainly wouldn't appreciate music as much.

I don't know-- do you really think there's such a simple link between number of artists known and appreciation? Although "appreciation" has multiple meanings so I could be taking you up wrong. I do apologise for the following if it misses your point entirely. I'm posting it regardless in order to add my opinion of the downloading issue.

But I mean, when I first started buying music I had basically fuck all cash. I used to save up for about 6 weeks - 2 months to be able to afford a single CD, and they were all I got for birthdays/Christmas. But I listened the fuck out of them and boy did I love 'em. I didn't care about not being able to get any other non-essentials because this was music that I loved and it was absolutely worth it. In terms of my knowledge and experience of genres, it was a slow creep, but it didn't matter to me. Downloading for me meant a track or two here and there on Napster. I was on dial-up at the time, and slow dial-up at that so you can imagine how painful that was...

Then I got broadband, and discovered metal-archives. The latter has been amazing in terms of broadening my knowledge and horizons, but the first part of it that I found was the old not-legal free download thread (I was searching for this band Thergothon I had become interested in hearing...). And boy was that an explosion. I downloaded a prodigous amount of albums, discovering an amazing number of bands very quickly... and barely appreciated any of it. Stuff was getting a cursory listen or two. I was basically ignoring absolute gems and even deleting works that would later become some of my favourite albums. Hell, I deleted A Deeper Kind of Slumber. Still don't know what I was thinking. The only stuff I really paid attention to was the most catchy or instantly-standout music.

Nowadays I can actually afford to buy a fair few albums. I love physical copies so this is my preferred option, but I do grab quite a few artist-endorsed downloads also-- I've come to believe strongly in the concept of respect for artists, but I can't afford copies of everything I want. I very seldom download otherwise, because I really don't find that I appreciate these albums correctly. Instead I buy CDs and they live in my room until I feel that I've become familiar enough with them to put them in their space on the shelf. I've developed a pretty good sense for what I will and won't like, but I often use samples and songs found on myspace and youtube to protect myself from poor choices. I feel like I'm a lot better off this way. My rate of artist discovery/album acquisition is fairly low, and there are lots of classic and essential releases that I lack, but you know, I'll get to them in my own time and give them the consideration they deserve. I hope that I'll damn well appreciate them, too.

So, do I look down on people downloading? Well, no. That would be rather hypocritical, for one, and the internet is indeed a fantastic means of discovery, for another. I understand. But I don't see it as a replacement for buying music, for me at least. This is a much more healthy way of viewing it, I feel. Years later, I'm still working on buying copies of those classics I downloaded, because music that great should be paid for, in my mind. But I'm in no rush. For now, I'm happy planning my next purchase-- most of the first few Bathory albums, a gaping hole in my collection. I can't really afford to order them for a month or so, but the anticipation will only make them sweeter. And the songs that I found on YouTube let me know how much fun I'll have when I blast them on my stereo.

There, not an attempt at being judgemental, but a description of my personal outlook. I wondered whether it rang true for anybody else, at any or all of my three key stages?

There, not an attempt at being judgemental, but a description of my personal outlook. I wondered whether it rang true for anybody else, at any or all of my three key stages?

I think you pretty well summed up the grey area most of us exist in. I do download stuff, mostly for researching purposes. If I find something I'm into and its readily available I purchase it. If it's not readily available I listen to my downloaded copy until someone decides to re-issue that shit. If all my mp3's disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't give a flying fuck, it's just a tool to help decide which albums get priority on my next purchases, and to find/try new stuff. I'm also slowly working my way through, trying to pick up some classics here and there while still supporting the underground bands that might actually see a dollar or two from me buying their output.

Obviously I'm no where near as "hardliner" on this subject as the old school guys like hellhippie and 16th6th, but it does make my skin crawl slightly when people refer to their mp3's as a "music collection".

You know, I download all the time, but mostly because I want to sample. If I like it, I buy it. What exactly makes people think they're entitled to get free music? If you can't afford it, feel free to be a leech, but stop trying to justify yourself about it.